Once We Were Brothers
by A Scary Man
Summary: X-Com Apocalypse: in Chapter 2, the main character sees for himself what the aliens are really like... (now rated PG for language)
1. Chapter One

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN X-COM APOCALYPSE OR ANYTHING CONTAINED WITHIN SAID GAME.

Chapter One

"Run! They're right behind us!"

I swore and pushed away from the brick wall, breaking into a fast sprint. Risking a glance behind me, I saw three Megapol officers less than ten yards away.

"Stop!" one of them yelled. "You're under arrest!"

The officers were armed, but we knew they weren't allowed to use deadly weapons on civilians. Glancing behind me again, I saw something that made me curse once more. The officer in the lead, presumably the fastest runner, had just grabbed a stun grapple from his belt and was readying it to fire at us.

"Stun grapple!" I yelled to the boy running beside me. "Take cover!"

We were in luck, as a low brick wall suddenly came into view on our right. Taking a run up and leaping over the wall, we ducked down behind it as two stun bolts impacted on the wall where we'd just been standing. Knowing the weapon would take a moment or two to recharge, we leapt to our feet and plunged into another dark alleyway. Taking two or three turns through the seedy streets we knew so well, it appeared we'd lost the cops. The two of us sank down on the ground to get our breath back.

"That was close," I panted. "They must have been lying in wait for us."

Thomas nodded, "Somebody must have tipped them off. I wonder if – "

"Maybe someone did, but it was too big a risk to take. I never wanted to do that shop in the first place."

I closed my eyes and sighed deeply, leaning back against the hard brick wall of the alleyway, feeling the dampness of the street soaking through my jeans. I'd quit smoking cigarettes two years ago, but at times like this I often wished I had something like that to calm me down and steady my nerves. 

"You think it's safe to come out yet?"

I shrugged, "We'll give it a few more minutes, to let those cops go back to their doughnuts, then we'll head back to my place."

I had been on the run from the police most of my life. Living in the worst slum district of Mega Primus was not the nicest existence I could have managed. The neighbourhood was run by the Diablo gang, and hardly a day went by without fights and killings between the gang members and their great rivals Osiron. I had no interest in joining the gang, though they had tried to recruit me more than once. I broke the law because it was the only way to survive, not because I wanted to make a career out of it. Once I'd got enough money, I'd move out of this stinking neighbourhood and set myself up elsewhere in the city.

My mother had died when I was three and my father had walked out on the family before I was even born. I lived with my older brother and sister, both of whom worked in a local shop, and struggled to make enough money to put food on the table. I was eighteen years old, had quit school long ago, and spent most of my time hanging around my best friend Thomas, looking for odd jobs to scrape a few extra dollars, or robbing shops and other joints for food or money. The two of us had been best friends since we'd grown up on the same street together as infants.

I opened my eyes and glanced without interest at the horde of posters that competed for space on the wall facing me. Advertisements for concerts, political slogans, a couple of flyers by local cafes trying to drum up business, a Citizen's Alert poster telling us exactly what we should do if we witnessed an alien incursion, an X-Com recruitment poster…

I found myself thinking about the alien situation. I'd seen the ships in the sky of course – who hadn't? – but I'd never seen a real-life alien. Thomas claimed he'd seen one in an abandoned street on the edge of our neighbourhood, but I wasn't sure whether or not I believed that. Why would the aliens waste their time out here in the slums? They'd be going after the richer pickings in the luxury apartments or the Senate.

"Thomas?" I said suddenly. "You ever think about signing up with X-Com?"

"No, why?"

"Oh, I was just wondering. It might be something to do one day. They pay you, you know. They'll protect you from the police, too. It might be somewhere to try and make a decent start in life."

"Nah, I wouldn't join X-Com," he said, shaking his head. "I'll tell you something, though…"

"What?"

He looked around with an exaggerated show of caution, then leaned in close to whisper, "I know a guy who asked me to join the Cult of Sirius."

I raised an eyebrow but didn't show any great excitement. The Cult of Sirius were just another one of the factors in the whole alien business that had nothing to do with me or my life.

"They pay you too, and far more than X-Com," Thomas told me. "This guy I was talking to, he earns nearly a thousand dollars a month!"

"Really?" I said, this time with genuine interest. "Where do they get that amount of money to pay people?"

"The whole Cult's run by some reclusive billionaire," he explained. "Claims he was visited by an alien who told him the real reason why they're visiting our planet."

I noted the use of the word 'visiting'; most people thought of it as 'attacking', but I said nothing, allowing him to continue.

"There's a Cult meeting in the old town hall tonight. This guy said I should come along, and bring any friends who were interested. You want to go?"

I didn't answer right away. It sounded interesting. The money was what attracted me; I wasn't too interested in the political side of things. 

"What kind of things do the Cultists do?" I asked, out of curiosity.

"He said that most new recruits become part of security teams. X-Com has been raiding the Cult's temple a lot recently and we're desperate for security personnel."

I didn't miss his reference to the Cult as 'we'. Did Thomas already think of himself as a member?

"So, what do you think?" he asked. "I'm going to go along for sure, but it'd be really cool if we both went. There's a special bonus for anyone who recruits a friend."

I decided I might as well go along and see what it was all about. If I didn't want the job, I could always back out.

"Sure, I'll come and have a look," I said. "Where and when?"

"Tonight – ten o'clock – at the old town hall," he said, then dropped his voice to a whisper again. "Remember it's a _top secret_ meeting. The Cult's been made illegal by Megapol and if the cops find out we'll be in trouble. Don't tell anyone about it."

"Don't worry."

* * *

It was just before ten o'clock when we arrived on foot at the old town hall. There was nobody in sight, save for a couple of old tramps lying asleep under blankets and various pieces of trash. There was certainly no evidence of any large congregation of people.

"There's nobody here," I said.

"Ssh!" Thomas hissed. "Somebody might hear you! We don't want to bring any attention to ourselves! I told you it's a _secret_ meeting. Everyone will be inside."

We walked to the town hall's entrance and as we passed through, I had the weirdest sensation that I was being watched. It made sense for the Cult to have posted sentries at the door to watch for police, but I couldn't see anyone. Thomas seemed to know where he was going, and steered me towards a staircase leading down. I had a rough knowledge of the layout of this building; in my younger days I'd been brought here before the juvenile correction board a couple of times, after being caught stealing. I was old enough now that I'd simply be arrested, but on the other hand I was now old enough and wise enough to avoid being caught.

We came to a large pair of double doors and it was here that we met the first person we'd seen in the building. Standing silently in front of the doors, clad from head to toe in black, with the Cult's symbol emblazoned in red on his shirt. He eyed us suspiciously.

"We're here to join the Cult," Thomas announced confidently. "I was asked to come here by one of the Cult members. This is my friend Neil who wanted to come along too."

The man said nothing and stared at us for a moment or two longer, as if trying to evaluate us in some way, then stood aside to allow us to enter. Thomas pushed open the door and we entered the meeting hall. Rows of seats were arranged in a semi-circle fashion before a large stage. Most of the seats appeared to be filled and it seemed the meeting was about to commence. Thomas and I quickly ran to a couple of empty seats near the back, and sat down to listen. I glanced around the room briefly, noting that nearly everybody was wearing the same outfit as the guard outside: black clothes and bold red symbol. I returned my attention to the podium as a tall man with jet black hair stepped up to speak into a microphone.

"Is that the leader?" I whispered to Thomas. "The billionaire guy you were talking about?"

"No – he never makes a public appearance. That's his second-in-command – also his nephew."

The man began speaking.

"Greetings, my brethren," he said in a soft, silky voice that was so quiet as to be barely audible, even over the microphone, but carried such a tremendous weight and power that nobody could possibly miss a word. 

It was as if he was everywhere in the room, speaking into everyone's ear at once. He continued, "It has been too long since we last convened like this. The ignorance of the city's police force continues to obstruct our following the path of light and truth."

There was a rumble of disgruntled muttering throughout the room as the Cultists expressed their general dislike of Megapol.

"I must tell you now that this meeting will deviate slightly from the usual agenda," the speaker warned. "But for very good reason. We are extremely fortunate to have with us today a representative from the world of our welcome visitors. It is with immense pride and joy that I invite him to speak."

He took one step to the side as another figure joined him at the mike. Except this one wasn't human. The surprise on my face was matched by the awed expressions and overjoyed gasps from around the room.

It was an alien. It stood the same height as our speaker, had humanoid shape and blue skin. The speaker lifted the mike once more, "Unfortunately our guest does not converse well in our language yet, but I will translate for him."

The alien began speaking in a loud, guttural voice, in a language that meant nothing to Thomas or me. The black-haired man appeared to understand it perfectly though, as he provided an interpretation for the rest of us. It was at this point that I began to stop listening to most of what he was saying. My impatience and short attention span had always been a problem at school; the teachers knew I was bright enough but had extreme difficulty in keeping my interest on any one task for a sufficient length of time.

The room was extremely hot and stuffy at this point, and I found myself nodding off. Every time I found myself slumping forwards, I forced myself to come back to consciousness. It would not go down well if I fell asleep right in the middle of the alien's important speech. The rest of the Cultists appeared to be listening to the oration with rapt interest, but I didn't care. If I was to join the Cult, it would be for the money, nothing more. There was no other driving force in my life. Enough money to buy food to survive, that was all I needed.

The meeting was adjourned before too much longer; apparently there were Megapol officers in the area who might have been tipped off. Our alien guest was spirited away to wherever he had been hiding earlier, and the rest of us began making our way to the various exits, leaving sporadically in small enough numbers that we didn't draw any attention to ourselves. Thomas and I were among the first to get out of the building, and we began walking the two or three miles back to our street.

"So what did you think?" Thomas asked me enthusiastically. "I thought the whole thing sounded totally awesome! I mean, a _real-life alien_!! I didn't know humans could speak their language, but the speaker must have learned it from them."

"Are you going to join the Cult?" I asked.

"Damn right!" he exclaimed. "I realise now that the police and the media have an extremely prejudiced view of the aliens. That's the first time I've ever heard an alien speak. We shouldn't form opinions about them without hearing their side of the story first."

That was a fair point. In the back of my mind were the stories I'd heard, or read in the paper, about aliens killing people or kidnapping them for experiments. Was that true? Maybe it _was_ just newspaper propaganda against the aliens. I didn't know what to think. Thomas said, "So what about you? Are you going to join?"

I weighed the options once more in my mind. As usual, it all came down to the money. The Cult would pay money, and working for somebody was better than living off the streets and stealing for food.

"What the hell," I said. "I'm in."


	2. Chapter Two

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN X-COM APOCALYPSE OR ANYTHING CONTAINED WITHIN SAID GAME.

Chapter Two

"Great!" Thomas exclaimed. "We're not going to regret this!"

"How do we get in touch with the Cult to let them know we want to join them?"

He fished a piece of paper out of his pocket, "One of the guys at the door gave me this. It's the address of the local HQ. We can go down there anytime."

"Tomorrow?" I suggested. "I'm pretty tired; I just want to go to bed now."

"OK," he said. "I'll come over for you in the morning and we'll go down together."

We agreed on that and began walking the rest of the way home. We had about a mile to go, when both of us gave a surprised jump at the loud explosion in the sky above us.

"Look!" Thomas yelled, pointing upwards. "An alien ship!"

Shielding my eyes against the glare of the streetlights, I peered upwards. One of the smaller alien ships, the one I'd christened 'the flying teapot', was passing overhead, pursued by two or three Megapol hovercars. The cop cars looked to be fitted with simple laser weapons, while the alien ship fired back at them with vivid purple energy bolts. I'd never seen anything like them before; I decided they had to be from some advanced alien weapon. 

Thomas and I cheered as the alien ship fired at the nearest police car, shooting it out of the sky, sending it crashing into a nearby building. The other two cop vehicles kept their distance from then on, cruising along behind the alien ship, firing lasers in its direction, but scoring very few hits.

"They're going to get away!" I exclaimed.

"Nice try, assholes!" Thomas shouted joyfully, showing two fingers to the police cars.

Suddenly another ship appeared from nowhere, powering its way on to the scene, joining the pursuit against the aliens.

"It's an X-Com ship!" I realised.

The four ships disappeared from view, and we hurried to the next street to get a better view. We were just in time to see the X-Com ship firing a salvo of missiles at the alien craft, scoring several direct hits, sending the alien ship spiralling down towards the ground, hopelessly out of control.

"Hey, that's coming down in our neighbourhood!" Thomas yelled. "Let's go! We might get to see the aliens!"

We ran at full speed through the remaining streets towards our own neighbourhood. My heart pounding with excitement, I continued running along beside Thomas, getting ever closer to the rising plume of smoke that marked where the aliens had crashed.

"Hell, it's in our own street!" he shouted as we got near.

We rounded the corner into our street, and got our first close-up view of the alien ship. It was lying at a 45 degree angle to the ground, half-destroyed, still-burning fires belching out smoke from within. As I got closer, I saw it had come down right outside my own house. I saw three or four shapes running from the ship, holding weapons, entering my house…

"Oh no…" I breathed.

My brother and sister were home. They had to be. My sister had got pregnant, though she wouldn't tell us who the father was, probably since my brother had threatened to kill the man, but now both of them stayed home most of the time when they weren't working. I broke into a run towards my home.

"Neil! Where are you going?" Thomas shouted after me.

I ignored him and began to run faster. My heart leaped right into my mouth as I heard the sound of weapon fire from inside the house.

"Please let that have been a weapon going off by mistake," I heard myself saying to no-one in particular as I sprinted along. "Please don't let that have been my brother or sister being shot. Please let them be all right. Please let that have been a weapon going off by mistake!"

I repeated my mantra twice more as my anxiety rose, stopping only when I reached the house and opened the front door. The scenes I saw within would stay with me for the rest of my life.

My sister lay on the kitchen floor in a pool of her own blood, her face forever etched in a silent scream of horror. An alien was cutting at her abdomen with a knife of some kind, spilling even more blood on to the white floor tiles. My brother was curled by the foot of the stairs, his dead fingers still on the shotgun that he kept in his room to guard against intruders. One of the blue-skinned aliens lay beside him, unconscious or dead, evidence that he'd put up a fight before they'd got him. There were three other aliens, all of them in the kitchen, two of them conversing in the same language I'd heard spoken at the Cult meeting earlier that night. The third was still cutting at my sister's stomach, removing pieces of tissue to place in small boxes.

"YOU BASTARDS!!" I screamed at the top of my voice.

The three aliens looked up in surprise, but they were all unarmed and I was already running towards my brother's shotgun. The box of ammo was also by my brother's body, the cartridges spilling out on to the floor. I rammed two of them into the waiting chamber of the shotgun, cocked it, and fired at the first blue alien that came running out of the kitchen towards me. It gave a loud scream of pain, and fell backwards on to the floor. Without thinking, I slammed two more cartridges into the gun, and finished another of the aliens, letting it fall dead beside the one my brother had killed.

The third alien had managed to grab one of their weapons from the kitchen floor, and raised it to fire at me. I didn't have time to reload; instead I slammed the butt of the shotgun down on to the alien's head, knocking it off balance. That blow would have knocked any man unconscious, but the alien shrugged it off, and swung its own weapon towards me. I managed to duck aside, hitting the alien over the head with the shotgun once more. It gave a grunt of pain, and I felt a surge of vengeful satisfaction. These monsters had killed my only family, and I'd be damned to hell if I'd let them get away from me. I brought the shotgun down on the alien's head, screaming, "Bastard!" as it crumpled to its knees, swinging its big powerful arms, trying to knock me aside.

"Bastard! Bastard! Filthy blue bastard!" I screamed, hitting it on the head over and over again with an unstoppable savagery, even after it became clear that the thing was dead.

I spat on the alien's corpse, kicking its weapon aside, and dropped the shotgun. I ran into the kitchen, hoping against hope that my sister might somehow be alive, despite the huge amount of blood she'd lost. I cradled her body in my arms, and shook her, in the hope that her eyes might open and she'd know I'd killed her tormentors. It was no use. I knew she was dead; in truth I'd known it the second I'd entered the house. I let her body fall gently to the floor, burying my face in her limp shoulder, crying the first tears I'd cried for four years. My brother and sister had been my only family, two of the few people I'd ever truly been able to rely on for support, and now they were dead. Taken from me. _Stolen_ from me. Grabbing the knife the alien had been using, I made a small cut in my index finger, letting the blood drop on to my sister's cold white face before stammering through my tears, "I swear on my sister's dead body that I won't rest until I've killed every single alien bastard who dares to set foot on my planet."

I'd thought all of the aliens in the house were dead. I'd obviously been mistaken, as something suddenly gripped me about the head. I whirled round to face my attacker, but there was nothing there. I suddenly realised there was something _sitting_ on my head. I reached up to pull it off, but it held on with four powerful claws. I screamed with horror as I understood what it was doing. Something sharp, something painful and terrible, was slowly inserting itself up my nose.

"Get off me! Bastard!" I yelled, swiping at the thing with my fists, grabbing the knife and stabbing the creature.

It shuddered with pain but continued its attack. I felt the intruding – _thing_ – sliding further up my nose, and went into a frenzy of trying to tear the thing off my head. It was all to no avail. I couldn't knock the thing off. It was going to kill me.

There came the sound of machinegun fire and the creature flopped off my head on to the floor, dead. The horrible pain in my nose was gone, and I fell forward on to my hands and knees, gasping for breath. After a moment or two I looked over to see my rescuer.

"You all right?" he asked, loading a fresh round into his machinegun.

"I – I think so," I gasped, feeling the top of my head with both hands to make sure the thing was definitely gone.

"You were lucky. Another couple of seconds…" he said, and shivered, letting me know how bad the outcome would have been.

"What _was_ that?"

"Nasty little beggar – we call them Brainsuckers," he explained. "When I first joined X-Com, I could barely sleep at night for thinking about one of these things attacking me."

I noted the grey body armour and the badge on his shoulder, and asked, "You're X-Com?"

"That's right. Squaddie Dean Bridges, at your service."

"You were in that ship – the one that shot down the aliens?" 

"Yeah. We had to back off and find a safe place to land, since the aliens have been known to self-destruct their ships after being shot down. We've lost two good ships and a lot of good people that way."

"They killed my family," I said, pointing to my sister. "My brother's lying out in the hallway. Why'd they do it? My sister didn't even have a chance to fight back."

"Hell knows why they do it," soldier said, kicking the dead alien. "They just kill people. It's what they do. Sometimes they take the bodies away for research, but most of the time they just kill for the sake of it."

"I hate them. I want to kill every last one of them."

Squaddie Bridges knelt down by my sister, "She was pregnant? That would explain it."

"Explain what?"

"There's been a spate of alien kidnappings or killings of pregnant women in recent weeks," he said. "We don't know why. Either they want to study how we reproduce, or they're trying to wipe us out by killing all our pregnant women. They've bombed two Procreation Parks."

"Those the places where the rich have babies outside the womb?"

"Yeah. One of the worst things I ever saw was one after it was destroyed. How the Commander managed to break the news to the parents…"

I said nothing, and just looked at my sister's body. What would have happened if I had arrived at the house a minute or two earlier? Could I have changed the outcome? Would I have been killed too? I knew it was pointless to think that way, and I forced myself to stop it. But if I had only been able to run a little faster…

Then another thought struck me. I'd been _cheering_ when the alien ship had shot up the police hovercar – the ship that was being flown by the aliens who'd just murdered my family. I'd been cheering them for shooting down the people who had been trying to protect my family and the thousands of other people who it might have happened to instead. How many other people had had to come home like this to find their loved ones killed by aliens for no reason other than they liked killing? Too many. I made up my mind that there would be no more. I looked up at Bridges. He'd removed his helmet, and I could see he had fair hair and a lean, hard expression.

"I want to join X-Com," I said suddenly. "I want to kill the aliens. All the aliens."

He nodded slowly, "I'll talk to my Sergeant. I saw you kill those three just now, and I'll tell you this: what you did wasn't easy. Anthropods are incredibly strong and difficult to keep down."

"Anthropods? Is that what those blue things are called?"

"That's what our lab gurus call them, anyway," he said. "I almost envy them, getting paid to take these monsters apart, piece by piece."

"I want to kill them. All of them," I said once more.

"Come out and talk to the Sergeant. I'll clean up here, then call the police to report your family's deaths. They'll get a decent burial."

Unable to say a word, consumed by the horror of my loss, and the deep, unrelenting anger I felt within my soul, I walked out of the house to find the Sergeant. A group of people in grey armour stood at the downed alien craft, most of them holding machineguns like the one Bridges had had. I went over to them and said, "I'm looking for the Sergeant."

A man toting a rocket launcher looked over, "That's me. Sergeant Hawks. What is it?"

"I want to join X-Com. Your man Bridges told me to talk to you."

"Your family?" he guessed.

I nodded, "Dead."

"I understand," he said. "A lot of people like you join up for revenge. Tell you what: we'll finish up here, then you can come back to base with us to sign up. You are over eighteen, right?"

"Yes."

"We can leave immediately or you can call us later if you want to wait a bit…"

"No. I want to go now. I don't want to stay here. There's nothing here for me any more."

"All right. Grab whatever you need and meet me here in twenty minutes. What's your name?"

"Hunter. Neil Hunter."


End file.
